daily report from cornland

presentation went well but little audience because too early. i didn't care except for the handouts that i paid for, for nothing...

enric is a wonderful guy, we talked a lot about spain, life, the conference, publishing, and made an outline of our article. i met his family at khana khazana tonight. it was so cool to finally meet him. i think we've been corresponding through email for about 3 years.

met a very nice couple during the banquet last night, living in japan, he from england, she from canada. i drove her to the limo place because she had forgotten her passport in the limo from the airport, and they invited me for diner tonight. we talked almost 3 hours. the restaurant was full from conference people because i had gotten us a 10% discount for all attendees.

talked to a lot of people, kinsley bolton, braj kachru, marko modiano, gary french, larry smith, shingo moriyama, people from sweden, south africa, japan, russia, finland, india, costa rica... i love to be surrounded by such an international crowd. i especially like the group of american guys who work at the japanese university where IAWE is going to be next year, in nagoya. i met them in syracuse last year and they're tons of fun. i really hope i'll be able to go there but i doubt it.

this is a very nice conference because it's small, informal, and they feed you for two days! 120 participants only, so after 2 days you know everyone, almost. very much unlike tesol or any other conference i've been to. two and a half days is also a good length for a conference. this afternoon already i was a bit tired of it and exhausted physically.

IU has written me again, and i REALLY feel like driving down there RIGHT NOW and killing someone. good thing i'm too tired! i wanna cry with these guys, i can't believe what a pain they are. it's been FOUR weeks now and they're still taking a week every time to tell me that this word should be replaced by that word and asking me questions about stuff that i WROTE in the protocol and they just don't read it! someone, not sure who, maybe chris blake, was telling me he'd researched IRB procedures before he started his project and decided to rewrite his whole project so he wouldn't have to deal with it because it's such a pain! no kidding!!!!

i'm 3 days behind in answering my emails... i guess i'll do that tomorrow afternoon, before i start worrying about the AILA conference... for now i'm going to bed!